By-election seats
Sinn Féin bask in their success, but now face test of holding on to gains Power in numbers for Healy-Raes
SINN Féin enjoyed a bumper day at the polls as they doubled their vote in the local elections, while also looking poised to win at least two European elections and having a fighting chance of winning the Dublin West byelection.
When the votes are finally collated, the party will have increased its vote share from 10% in the General Election three years ago to about 16% on local authorities across the country, which will transfer into huge seat gains.
The jump is even more impressive given that the party had won less than 8 per cent support at the last local elections in 2009.
Sinn Féin will probably be the largest party on Dublin City Council and has made significant gains across other local authorities.
It also made sweeping gains in Galway where Mairéad Farrell was elected.
She is the niece of Mairéad Farrell, an IRA member who was shot in Gibraltar by the SAS in 1988. Relative unknown Lynn Boylan looks like taking more than a quarter of the first preference votes in the Dublin European constituency and will take a seat in a stunning result.
Liadh Ní Riada also looked like taking a seat in Ireland South and Matt Carthy remains in the mix in the Midlands North West constituency. Transfers will decide the Dublin West by-election where Sinn Féin’s Paul Donnelly topped the poll on the first count where he got 6,066 first preferences.
By the fourth count, he had been outpaced by the Socialist Party’s Ruth Coppinger on 7,342 and Fianna Fáil’s David McGuinness on 6,789, while he was on 6,516.
The party is projected to take 17% of the vote in the European elections.
But now they will have to show their mettle as decision makers to make the shift more permanent.
The very thing that made Sinn Féin so popular yesterday – that they have never been in power in the Republic of Ireland – is no longer an electoral asset.
In Dublin, Sinn Féin may be regretting it didn’t run more than its 18 candidates with tallies indicating it is almost certain of at least 13 seats.
Indeed, on Friday night the party’s spin doctors pointed out that the party could have won far more seats if it had run more than its 190 candidates.
For instance, former Fianna Fáil TD Chris Andrews, who was elected for the party in the Pembroke-South Dock local election area in Dublin, could well have brought in a running mate such was his success.
Mary Lou McDonald, Sinn Féin deputy leader articulated the party’s happiness: ‘You’re seeing coming through a new generation of young Sinn Féin representatives and I want to commend every single one of them who contested the elections and their families and every single person who came out and supported us. Today is a good day for us.
‘I do anticipate that we will have doubled or maybe even trebled our number of councillors right across the State and we are in contention for each of the three European seats in each of the constituencies.’ BETWEEN the father and son duo of Danny and Johnny Healy-Rae – the pair polled more than three and a half quotas in the elections.
With Danny (a brother of Michael, pictured) winning 4,379 first preference votes and first timer Johnny, receiving 3,503, it seems there’s no stopping the Healy-Rae dynasty in Kerry.